Minutes of REVIVE BOMBAY - Fifth Meeting
Time: 5:00pm Sunday June 16th, 2002 Madhuli
NEXT MEETING : SUNDAY JULY 28th(ie, this weekend!), 4:30PM AT
THE MEXICAN
ROOM, POOL LEVEL, THE OBEROI TOWERS
Hello
everyone,
These
are the minutes of the fifth meeting of the organization.
1)
Update - New time for Meeting, logo, Charter As you all know,
we have a Managing Committee that looks after organizational decisions
etc. Issues discussed: i. Do we want to move the meeting times
from Sundays 5pm to Thursdays 7pm. The reason for this was that
many members cherish their Sundays a lot -family Sundays, my one
day off, and "I live in the suburbs, and coming in 6 days
a week is enough, coming in one more day on my day off is pushing
it!". We debated over this issue. Having a Sunday does eliminate
the problem of weddings, functions, work committments etc which
one cannot get out of during the work week. The problem is if
Sunday is a problem for some, Thursdays are as much a problem
for others.
The
SOLUTION is that Revive Bombay meetings will now take place every
6th Sunday. This means that there will ONLY BE 8 ORGANISATIONAL
MEETINGS IN THE YEAR.. The scheduled dates for the meetings and
the locations will be decided before hand, and the whole yearly
schedule will be posted on the website soon.
2) Ah yes! Website. We now have a website and that too a great,
very informative website. The site address is
www.revivebombay.org, www.revivebombay.com
(which forwards to the .org site).There has been a TERRIFIC response
to it. Many thanks to Chaitanya Rajani and his company Binaro
Online Solutions (www.binaro.com)
who were responsible for the wonderful design and layout, and
Prashant Deorah and his company (www.puretech.co.in)
for hosting the site. Both have been extremely helpful and we
are proud of the brilliant work they have done. The website has
been made to be user-friendly and we welcome further suggestions.
Features include the Bombay Ward Map with zoom-in, 10 Point How
to Solve a problem, Volunteering opportunities, Membership forms
and many other things. Please go through it and inform your friends
and family about it so that they too can use the website to solve
their Bombay problems.
3) The REVIVE BOMBAY article in the Times of India.
The Times of India published an article on Revive Bombay and its
members on Wednesday June 19th, 2002. The article even got printed
in the Delhi edition 2 days later. To see the article, click here
:
http://www1.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=13409824&sType=1,
or open up the paper on that day. We would like to make a clarification
regarding the article that got published. We had decided that
we would not go public with the organisation until we had atleast
one project that had reached completion, or a definite show of
improvement. However, while we were working on our investigation
on one of the projects, the Times learnt about the organisation
and decided to do an article on it without informing us. When
we found out, we requested them to hold it until we had achieved
some kind of definite progress. However, they wanted to publish
anyway and there was nothing we could do but cooperate. While
their article has received tremendous response from the city (all
the team leaders, managing committee members have been bombarded
with emails from people from all over the city) and we are extremely
appreciative and thankful, we felt that the article could have
been better and - given time - we would have been able to go to
them with more content.The
organisation is a very informal organisation and members are anyone
that are on the mailing list. However, some people might be unaware
of that, which prompted the comment on Amit Deshmukh. We will
make sure in the future that anyone who is associated with this
organisation is well aware of it and their responsibilities to
it.
4) Team Updates
Quite a few of the team leaders were unable to make it. However,
we do have the reports for the minutes.
A)
Bollywood Walk of Fame
Hemanth Meka Rao (hemanth@hemanth.net)
Mr.
Hafeez Contractor has been gracious enough to take on the design
and layout of the Walk of Fame, including the design for the actual
stars and the footprints. We now have the design and are working
on the Presentation. The presentation to MSRDC is most likely
going to be during the 1st-2nd week of August. We are working
on getting MSRDC to work with us and give us the use of the land
on a permanent basis.
B)
Tree Plantation
Chetna Mahadik (skye123@rediffmail.com)
As
Sravanya is presently busy with other committments (ie, that of
MARRIAGE!), she will be working with Chetna who will be the Team
Leader on this project. They have met with the Hiranandani's who
have promised them free saplings from their nursery.
C)
Food Drives
Chirag Doshi (ccdoshi@walchand.com)The
Team invited Shaheen from Akanksha, the organisation that works
with street children to talk on how we could synergize and see
how Food Drives and Akanksha could tie up with their customer
base of children and our base of food resources. It was found,
during the meeting with members that the food made at the restaurants
might be too rich for daily food. So it was then decided that
having a once in a month 'Special Lunch' organized by Food Drives
might be a solution. Another
option that has been presented is tying up with the Magic Bus
organization. The team is presently looking into that.
D)
Clean Air Project
Puneet Khurana (puneet_k@yahoo.com)The
team is glad to inform us that Mr. A. K. Purwaha, Managing Director
of Mahanagar Gas Limited will be adviser for our Clean Air project.
Today Mahanagar Gas is providing natural gas in more that 1,00,000
homes and running 28 CNG refueling stations which they plan to
expand to 42 by March 03. Mr. Purwaha has made some suggestions
for their project. We are currently preparing a proposal for co-operative
bank to help fund CNG conversions.
E)
Accessibility for Individuals with Disabilities (A.I.D) Manish
Maker (mrmaker@makersinternational.com)
· Met and spoke with developers of INOX Multiplexes about
disabled accessibility and ramps. They confirmed to us that their
theatres are completely accessible, including with disabled toilets.
· Visited the INOX theatre in Pune to have a look at the
way ramps are located, toilets are designed, and circulations
are planned. Had a tour of the entire development so carry forward
knowledge to other theatres/theatre owners.· Visited most
of the prominent theatres in the city including Eros,Liberty,
Regal, Central Plaza, and Metro. Introduced ourselves as members
of Revive Bombay, and spoke with available personnel including
managers at all these theatres about their willingness to accommodate
disabled persons and their existing infrastructure for the same.
Evaluated the situation, have got contact numbers for the relevant
persons to follow up with and speak to. Will keep everyone posted
on the future developments.
Have
received the corrected draft of our letter back from Mr Sanjay
Barve Barve (Dpty. Commissioner of Police, Airport Security) for
improving the accessibility at Mumbai's airports (he was helping
us with a letter to be written to the Director, Airports Authority
of India). A meeting will soon be fixed with the Director for
further action. · Met and discussed various issues with
Mr. Pramod Navalkar. Visited his Nana-Nani parks in Mumbai. Described
our project AID to him. We now have a strong commitment from him
to develop a Garden for the disabled. This will most probably
be part of an existing Nana-Nani park. Mr Navalkar was quite excited
about the synergies that exist between his mission and ours, and
the natural extention of his parks into our project-gardens for
elderly persons in wheelchairs. This does NOT mean the segregation
of persons in wheelchairs, but adaptation of facilities to suit
disabled/aged persons i.e. ramps, tables at appropriate heights,
etc. Met and spoke with NAGAR (NGO Alliance for Governance and
Renewal), an organization similarly committed to improving the
city. They have a project called NETRA (Networking for Traffic
Alternatives). They are very excited to work with us as part of
their traffic management initiative to muster support for disabled
individuals to have access to footpaths, pedestrian bridges, pedestrian
subways, new sidewalks etc.
F)
Road Signage
Kunal Chandra (kunal25@hotmail.com)No
Update
G)
Waste Management
Neha Mehta (neha@idfc.com)
In
the process of hooking up with Little Gibbs road ALM (Advanced
Locality
Management), and working with Il Palazzo soceity first. We are
also in touch with the D ward officer for BMC, and couple of other
local authorities. Next week the team will go and see some work
being done in other areas for waste segreagation. Many people
have gotten in touch with the Team after the newspaper article
and they are also advising others who want guidance on how to
go about Waste management in their area.
5)
Discussion
The fun part of the meetings are always the discussions we have
as a group. Afeter we finish the Team Updates, we talk about the
other issues that affect us and how we can go about solving them.One
of them that came up here was saving the mangroves of Cuffe Parade.
As many of you must be aware, the slums in Cuffe Parade, behind
the World Trade Center are destroying the mangroves and reclaiming
the land to extend their slums. Yes, this is illegal, but what
course of action needs to be taken? Puran
Doshi, BMC Corporator and fellow member has taken this issue up
for the organisation. Since the meeting on June 16th, he has met
with the Municipal Commissioner, the police and the Chief Secretary
of Maharashtra regarding the protection of mangroves. (For those
of you who want to know what mangroves are, they are like the
Amazon rainforests of the sea). You can learn about them at :
http://www.env.qld.gov.au/environment/coast/habitats/m.html
or
http://mbgnet.mobot.org/salt/mudflats/mangrove.htm
The
Mid-day even reported the action that was taken in its article
on July 8th,2002 Read about it at :
http://midday.chalomumbai.com/chalomumbai/showMidday.php?id=14786
CONGRATULATIONS
TO PURAN FOR GETTING REVIVE BOMBAY ANOTHER HIT!
6)
RED FM Radio station.
The Living Media group, publishers of The India Today have approached
the organisation to tie up Revive Bombay and their new FM radio
station RED FM, which has recently gone on air. The idea is to
have a weekend show where Revive Bombay and Red FM can discuss
and deal with issues, take callers, etc and educate the city about
what needs to be done, what can be done and how it can be done,
build up the organisation's reach, and improve Bombay. We are
currently exploring possibilities for this.
7) Akanksha
We had Shaheen from Akanksha to come and talk. She was invited
by the Food Drives Group headed by Chirag Doshi. While she was
to talk about Food Drives, the topic moved onto providing centres
for education. What Akanksha wants are places for children to
study for a 2 hour period in the day. * Food drive: organising
food for the akanksha centres once a month/two months and on special
occasions * Need for space: identifying from your network anyone
with available space for 2 1/2 hours a day. space is needed urgently
in colaba and worli but also in the VT area and Bandra * Need
for volunteers for the centres. this requires a 2 1/2 hour once
a week commitment and you need to come in for an interview first
at the office. english required, no other pre-requisites * Need
for paid teachers. individuals who commit 2 1/2 hours a day at
a centre, mon-fri. need really committed, creative, enthusiastic,
fluent in english teachers. No teaching background needed. For
more information, please see the Akanksha website www.akanksha.org.
Any interested volunteers/teachers should contact Archana Chandra,
Head of HR, at the office 3700253. Any space donors should contact
Shaheen at 9821058665 or Manije Kelkar, general manager on 9821325665.
8)
Citywatch paper - The citizen newspaper published by Sylvester
da Cunha was distributed to all that came.
9) AH! FINALLY!
Even though this must have seemed like a really long meeting,
a lot of the work mentioned here did happen AFTER the meeting.
However, since we were waiting on the reports to come in from
the Team Leaders, these minutes were delayed. The meeting itself
moved very quickly after which we all relaxed eating dosas and
idlis.
10)
Next time - New proposals. Updates. New ways to improve our world!
STRAY DOGS: VRINDA CHHABRA will be proposing for this new team.
She has done substantial work on this and if you are interested
in this Team, you should attend the July 28th meeting at the Oberoi.
Please don't get disillusioned. Team leaders have been complaining
that their members don't even reply to emails etc. We're all doing
this together. We are all a part of this because we want to be.
If you feel you're being forced to do something, please let us
know cos that is not what we intend. Or better - let your Team
Leader know what you can do, how much time you can give etc. All
of us work and are doing this in our spare time. We are not 70
year old pensioners who want to change the world now. We have
stuff to do, but we also care about our city and our world. So
lets keep the balance and not give up.
Be
part of the team.
*******NEXT
TIME*********
SUNDAY 28th JULY, 4:30PM AT THE MEXICAN ROOM, POOL LEVEL, THE
OBEROI TOWERS.
*************************
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